Malta received the world’s third-highest rate of asylum seekers both last year and between 2003 and 2007, according to figures published in the UNHCR’s 2007 Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialised Countries report.

The number of asylum applications received by Malta is also on a steady increase and last year’s figure of 1,380 applications was the highest on record, compared with 570 in 2003, and represents a nine per cent increase over 2006. Greece and the Republic of Korea also saw record highs last year.

Malta received 3.4 asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants last year, and a total of 13.3 applications per 1,000 between 2003 and 2007.

This compares with respective numbers of four and 14.5 for Sweden, and 7.9 and 39 for Cyprus, the nation receiving the most asylum seekers per capita.

While applications received by Malta are almost entirely lodged by asylum seekers from African States, Cyprus receives its bulk from the Middle East while Sweden receives a disproportionate amount of Iraqi asylum applications.

Per capita, other EU States on the Africa-Europe irregular migration route had far fewer asylum applications than Malta. Spain, for example, received 0.2 asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants in 2007 and 0.7 between 2003 and 2007, while Italy had respective numbers of 0.2 and one, and France 0.5 and 3.7.

The majority of applications received by Malta last year were from Somalis (585) and Eritreans (339). Other applicants hailed from the Ivory Coast (77), Sudan (76), Ethiopia (73), Mali (46), Nigeria (38), Niger (25), Ghana (15) and the DR of Congo (14).

In terms of absolute numbers, the report notes that until recently Austria, France, Germany and the United Kingdom had been the primary destinations for asylum seekers arriving in industrialised countries, but last year saw the lowest number of asylum seekers in years.

The case was the same elsewhere in Europe – in Holland, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovenia and France.

Overall, the 27 EU member States had a collective average of 2.6 asylum seekers per 1,000 inhabitants between 2003 and 2007, compared with Malta’s 13.3. 14 countries ranked below the EU27 average, including nine of the new EU12. Malta, Cyprus and Slovakia received on average more asylum-seekers per 1,000 inhabitants than the EU27 as a whole.

In absolute numbers, the United States received the highest number of asylum seekers in the 2003-2007 period (275,960) but was ranked 26th with an average of just one asylum seeker per 1,000 inhabitants.